Top 10 Botched Video Game Launches

Top 10 Botched Video Game Launches

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Top 10 FAILED Video Game Launches

Remember the days when you bought a game and it worked, right out of the box? Welcome to Watchmojo.com, and today we're counting down our picks for the top ten botched video game launches. For this list, we're looking at those game launches that disappointed fans at time of release, either by having buggy gameplay, backed up servers, or anything else that would cause fans and critics to deem it a failure. We’re not saying these games ended up being bad; a lot of them actually ended up being resounding successes in the long run.

#10: "World of Warcraft" (2004)

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What is perhaps the biggest and most well known MMORPG today, "World of Warcraft" had a less than stellar opening few days. To start with, and this will be a pattern going forward, the game had such insane hype behind it that the servers were backed up on release, preventing many people from actually playing. Those who were lucky enough to get in were greeted with buggy and insanely laggy gameplay. This, unfortunately wouldn't be the last time that jammed servers would leave Blizzard fans disappointed on launch day.

Half-Life 2 and Steam are two of the biggest success stories of our time, but launching them together proved to be a bad move. As players flocked to try out what would latter be dubbed one of the best games of all time, they were forced to go through Steam, the brand new digital distribution software that just so happened to have clogged servers. Digital distribution and the half-life name did survive, but many swore that Steam was the devil itself in those early days.

#8: "Grand Theft Auto Online" (2013)

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When "Grand Theft Auto V" was released, it broke sales records with 29 million units sold in the first month. So, guess what happened when a decent chunk of those 29 million tried to use the online mode at once. You guessed it, the servers friggin’ melted. If that wasn't bad enough, many players experienced their personal character's data to be wiped clean, meaning all of their progress was lost to the wind and they were forced to start again from square one.

#7: "World War II Online" (2001)

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While an online game centering around World War II battles sounded like a great idea, in reality, it was a nightmare. To begin with, players were greeted with a 70 MB update, and while that doesn't sound like much today, but back in 2001, when 56K modems were still the norm, it was considered ridiculously large and turned off many players from buying the game. It ended up selling so poorly that the developing team ended up filing for bankruptcy. Although it was rereleased a few years later with an updated title and graphics engine, it’s still gone down as a mega failure.

What was considered to be the new racing game that could rival the "Forza" series, "Driveclub" ended up falling flat on its face for a number of reasons. At launch, the game was considered too buggy to play properly, including a glitch which makes you travel at borderline supersonic speeds. Perhaps most infamously, the AI drivers were considered overly aggressive, often bumping into the player and ramming them off the road, ending in countless frustrated screams. Then, of course, the servers were a mess: I guess that one speaks for itself.

#5: "Assassin's Creed Unity" (2014)

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After the amazing series rejuvenation that was "Black Flag," fan expectations were very high for "Unity," but, well, you know... French Revolution-era Paris must have been an amazing place to live, what with the levitating citizens, complete lack of physics, and even the ability to warp through the ground and enter a Purgatory-like state beneath the streets. Topping it all off, the PC version crashed like a bandicoot and the console version had a slideshow framerate. But seriously, fans were extremely upset at the game's many bugs, and as such, the game has been described as one of the worst in the series and arguably one that may have killed it for good.

#4: "Diablo III" (2012)

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Blizzard Entertainment clearly didn't learn their lesson from "World of Warcraft" and produced yet another bomb of a launch. Jammed servers produced the infamous Error 37, naturally preventing players from logging in. This compounded the frustration that you had to login to play the game at all – seeing as many people had no interest in taking their adventure online – and that’s to say nothing of the real money auction house that nobody asked for. It caused an uproar amongst fans and gaming journalists alike, with many marking it as a worrying precedent for the future of gaming.

#3: "Final Fantasy XIV Online" (2010)

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The 14th title in the acclaimed JRPG series, almost sank the Final Fantasy name when it launched. When the game was released, it was almost universally panned for a plethora of issues ranging from dull quests, an interface that made it impossible to find your friends, and a poorly explained levelling up system. That’s not to mention that a lot of players would play with the sound off thanks to their characters really loud and annoying footsteps. It was so bad that Square Enix ended up dumping the entire development team and started all over again, with the new team giving us Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn … 3 years after the original launched.

#2: "Battlefield 4" (2013)

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While previous Battlefield games have had issues at launch, the release of this borderline broken game jostled players and caused them to lower their expectations for the "Battlefield" series. Clearly rushed out the door to compete with Call of Duty: Ghosts, the game was shipped with numerous bugs and glitches, but perhaps most importantly, players were being kicked out because their games were constantly crashing, causing them to lose their progress and their tempers. It became so bad that DICE had to postpone their DLC in order to fix the game's many problems. For some players, it took a whole year before the game was in a stable enough state to really commit to. Before we look at our most broken game, here are a few dishonorable mentions. "Hellgate: London" (2007) "Total War: Rome II" (2013) "Test Drive Unlimited 2" (2013) "Halo: The Master Chief Collection" multiplayer (2014) "Pokemon Bank” & “Pokemon Transporter” (2013) "Batman: Arkham Knight" (PC Version) (2015)

What has perhaps become the new poster boy for broken game launches, SimCity required a mandatory online connection for social features no one asked for. And as a result, at launch there were problems with the network, with players reporting that they couldn't even play. Not only that, but the players who could play the game experienced save files simply vanishing, causing understandable frustration amongst the community. Worse still, this colossal failure was the beginning of the end for the legendary development studio “Maxis” as they were eventually shut down by EA. What did we learn today? The servers always crash. Anyway, do you agree with our list? What game do you think had the worst launch? For more critical top tens published every day, be sure to subscribe to Watchmojo.com.